The Kentucky Department of Corrections runs KOOL, the Kentucky Offender Online Lookup System, whose search form advises entering as little information as needed to get a match: a last, first or middle name, with boxes to search aliases and to return only offenders with photos, and a sort order for the results. The advanced filters narrow the same population by offender type, DOC number, PID number, supervision status, location type and location, county of supervision, age with a plus or minus range in years, race, gender, crime or offense name and Kentucky Revised Statute code, and by conviction information: indictment, crime date, conviction date, conviction county, and the institution start or supervision begin date. Two date ranges stand apart. The escape or abscond range returns people whose current status is escaped or absconded and whose date of escape or abscond falls between the dates chosen, with either end left blank to open the range; the projected release date range returns people due for release between two dates, with the form's own warning that a date close to today returns almost all active offenders. The page states that any misuse of the information to harass an offender is a criminal offense.
KOOL's definitions page explains what a result means. The PID, or Person ID, is a number of up to seven digits that identifies the offender within the system, also called the Offender ID. Class D offenders are located in places like county jails and detention centers; community service offenders are serving community service; controlled intake offenders are housed in controlled intake locations; miscellaneous offenders serve their time in another manner around the state; and out of state, out to other state and interstate compact offenders are serving time or under supervision in another state. A person held in a county jail on a local charge, rather than as a Class D state inmate, is the jailer's record, and the Kentucky county pages list each jail.
- Search: KOOL by name, DOC number or PID number, with aliases, photos and the filters above; the definitions page tells what a location type such as Class D or controlled intake means.
- Institutions: KOOL's definitions list 13 state institutions, from the Bell County Forestry Camp to the Western Kentucky Correctional Complex, plus the contracted Marion County Adjustment Center; the Division of Adult Institutions says it oversees 14 correctional facilities and its menu also names the Lee Adjustment Center and the Southeast State Correctional Complex.
- Alerts: VINE, the free notification system the department links as Register for Vine, tells a registered phone or email when an offender's custody changes, confirmed with a four digit PIN.
- Attorneys: legal mail goes through the department's Legal Mail Portal after registration, and attorney video visits run through Securus at $5 for up to 25 minutes, unmonitored and unrecorded.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Kentucky's own systems: the Kentucky Department of Corrections Offender Online Lookup System, KOOL, the KOOL definitions page, the department's home page, the department's VINE Info page, the department's Legal Mail Portal page, the department's Attorney Video Visits page, the Division of Adult Institutions overview, the department's Death Row Inmates page, the KOOL time likely to be served tool, the KOOL likelihood of reincarceration tool, the Division of Local Facilities page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The institutions behind a location
A KOOL result places a person in one of the state's institutions, which the definitions page lists as the Bell County Forestry Camp, the Blackburn Correctional Complex, the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex, the Frankfort Career Development Center, the Green River Correctional Complex, the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women, the Kentucky State Penitentiary, the Kentucky State Reformatory, the Little Sandy Correctional Complex, the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex, the Northpoint Training Center, the Roederer Correctional Complex and the Western Kentucky Correctional Complex, or in the contracted private Marion County Adjustment Center.
The Division of Adult Institutions describes itself as overseeing 14 correctional facilities, and its facility menu names the Lee Adjustment Center and the Southeast State Correctional Complex alongside the others, so the two pages count the institutions differently; the department is led by Commissioner Cookie Crews, with deputy commissioners for Support Services, Adult Institutions, and Community Services and Local Facilities.
The Division of Local Facilities does not hold prisoners: it works with county jailers and local officials on county and regional jails, inspects every jail twice a year against the Kentucky Jail Standards, reviews jail construction drawings, and publishes a weekly jail population report, which is where a Class D state inmate serving time in a county jail is counted.
VINE: custody alerts without the offender knowing
The department's home page links Register for Vine, and its VINE Info page explains the system: Victim Information and Notification Everyday is a free automated service that alerts victims and concerned citizens to a change in an offender's custody, gathering its information from jail booking systems, prisons and mental health facilities. It tells whether an offender is in custody and gives status information, and lets a person register one or more phone numbers and email addresses for automatic notification.
The offender is not told who is registered; a phone registration sets a four digit PIN used to confirm that the notification was received; if no one answers, VINE leaves a message and keeps calling back for a 24 hour window until the PIN is entered; calls can arrive at any hour; and a number that rings to a switchboard cannot be registered.
Legal mail, attorney visits and sending money
The home page announces a new process for sending legal mail. Attorneys read the Legal Mail Portal Notice and Rules before registering, follow a user guide, and write to doc.legalmailportal@ky.gov with problems; the portal page carries the registration link. Attorney video visits run through a Securus Online account: the attorney signs up, supplies a self image, a picture of a driver's license and a picture of the bar license, and once approved schedules a session, at $5 for up to 25 minutes, that staff neither monitor nor record; in person visits are still arranged with the facility under its own procedures.
The home page's Send Money to an Inmate link opens the Adult Institutions Payment Services page, which held no readable text when it was read on October 14, 2026, so this guide gives no deposit vendor, fee or limit for Kentucky.
Time likely to be served and the chance of return
KOOL carries two statistical tools built on the department's sentencing and supervision data. The Amount of Time Likely to be Served for Particular Offense page takes an offense code, a sentence length, a crime date and a sentence modifier such as Persistent Felony Offender, first degree, and covers felony classes A, B, C and D and capital offenses; it describes itself as statistical information to assist the courts, not an official document for or of the court, with average sentences calculated from data since 2007 and the costs of incarceration, including direct and indirect costs and capital maintenance, and of probation and parole supervision computed by the department.
The Likelihood of Reincarceration page filters by gender, race, age group, risk assessment with data available from January 2015, crime type, crime location, probation type and sentence length, and defines recidivism as a first incarceration for a new offense or a supervision violation within two or three years of release.
Death row
The Death Row Inmates page lists each person with a date of birth, the county and date of sentence and the crime. It opens with Ralph Baze, sentenced to death on February 4, 1994 in Rowan County for killing a Powell County deputy and the sheriff who came to his home over Ohio warrants on January 30, 1992, and continues through Ronnie Lee Bowling, sentenced December 9, 1992 in Laurel County for two service station killings in London in 1989, Virginia Caudill, sentenced March 24, 2000 in Fayette County, Roger Epperson, Samuel Steven Fields, resentenced January 8, 2004 after a reversal, Robert Foley, with death sentences from Laurel County in 1993 and Madison County in 1994, and Fred Furnish, sentenced July 8, 1999 in Kenton County.
Reading a Kentucky result
A KOOL record answers with a status and a location type, and the definitions decide what they mean: an institution name is a state or contracted prison, Class D means a county jail or detention center, controlled intake means an intake location, and out of state means another state's custody or supervision. A projected release date is a projection, VINE turns the record into alerts, and a person on a county charge rather than a state sentence is found through the jailer.
Questions about finding an inmate in Kentucky
Related Kentucky records
KOOL sits among the Kentucky records this site covers: the Kentucky arrest records guide explains what a booking makes public, the court records guide covers the Court of Justice case files, the sex offender registry guide covers the State Police registry, and the Kentucky county pages list each jailer.